Persimmon & Pomegranate.

[88V8]

In Aldi's special offers more than two weeks ago. Bizarrely perhaps, we alternate our shops between there and Waitrose.

Been sitting the kitchen not in the fridge, which means around 62F.
They still feel like something that might have been used to batter down the walls of Troy.

How does one know when they are ripe?

V8

[DiamondEcho]

In Aldi's special offers more than two weeks ago. Bizarrely perhaps, we alternate our shops between there and Waitrose.
Been sitting the kitchen not in the fridge, which means around 62F.
They still feel like something that might have been used to batter down the walls of Troy. How does one know when they are ripe?V8

Maybe they had a plane-load of stock arrive from the Middle-East as both of those are in perhaps late-season here now.
And no not bizarre your pattern, my parents rotate Waitrose + LIDL, and I do similar when in the UK [M+S and Tesco]. The former for meat, fish and such items that are going to be 'the star ingredient of a dish' where top quality matters, the latter for the rest.
The way they would judge those fruits and their ripeness out here is primarily by a very gentle in-palm squeeze, and sniffing them. They want some suppleness, and then some perfume. I think that's how it works!

That said I must admit neither fruit does much for me. Persimmon to me are a bit like sweet perfumed firm tomato. [Can you sense I'm no huge fan? hehehe]. Pomegranates are a lot of work to get anything out of [suggest you Youtube re: getting the usable pips out]. I found one use for the seed pods, is decoration, as they are very pretty, in an 'Ooh fancy!!' kind of way. I'd made some small dishes of chocolate mousse, with a spoon of firm whipped cream on top. Then on top sprinkled some pomegranate 'seeds', and some shredded crystallised bitter orange peel [easy/free home recipe that one, since the peels were from juicing oranges!]. So that was very pretty, though I find it hard to think of other uses for them. If you find out any alts perhaps let me know eh/ Meanwhile pom juice+vodka is meant to make a decent shot!

[88V8]

Thankyou.
We broached one of the persimmon yesterday. Hard centre, skin hard like a cooking apple. Not much taste.
Perhaps give them another week.

Thanks for the warning about the pomegranate !

An Aldi Christmas brochure was with the weekend's Times. Several pages of gloss. They do make an effort with UK sourcing, and I like their stollen, lebkuchen etc.
I struggle to see however where all these extra offerings will be accommodated in our smallish store. I suspect it will be stuffed in, in the usual jumble sale fashion. Which actually I find one of the attractive things about Aldi. But it is hard to regard them as a quality retailer, and much of their own-brand is overly sweet. Sweetened peanut butter, arrrgh.

V8

[Generali]

I like pomegranate seeds on a herby salad, maybe that has some citrus in it too like grapefruit or lemon. Just cut in half and bash it against your hand over the salad.

I don't think persimmon ripens well off the tree and buying them over here when they hit the shops ripened already is a revelation. Yum!

[DiamondEcho]

The tips I recall re: de-seeding a pomegranate....
Before cutting it in half roll it back and forth all over, over the counter with some solid pressure from your hands, this helps loosen up the seeds.
Then cut in half and again between both hands on the sides [cut face pointing down] roll back and forth between your vertical palms with moderate pressure - a lot of seeds will thus simply fall out.

Either way it's not exactly a straight-forward fruit to get the best out of.

[6Tricia]

For me the only way to enjoy a pomegranate is to juice it!! I don't like to get the seeds of any fruit in my mouth, so particularly in the case of pomegranates, I roll them around on the counter before using my electric lemon juicer to extract all the lovely vitamin rich juice. Wonderful stuff!

When I lived in Spain I used to harvest pomegranates from the trees in the hedgerows. I also made pomegranate jelly every year.

I was also lucky to have a neighbour who had a huge persimmon tree. He wasn't keen on the fruit himself, so I was able to help myself to as much of the tree ripe fruit as I liked!

Tricia

[DiamondEcho]

In the Middle-East a street vendor selling fresh pomegranate juice will just cut the fruit in half and press each half down onto a rotating tool that looks like a simple citrus juicer tool. First time I saw that I was surprised as the yellow pith is seriously bitter, but none of the bitterness seems to come through in the final juice.

A mature persimmon tree in Spain, well I never?! Only region I've seen them is NE-Asia, Japan/Korea. I wonder who long ago brought back the seeds to Spain to grow that tree from!

[6Tricia]

The large rock hard persimmon I bought on 8 November has finally ripened! It was kept in the fruit bowl on the dining room table. I shall cut it in half and enjoy spooning out the soft flesh for dessert tonight .

Tricia

[DiamondEcho]

The large rock hard persimmon I bought on 8 November has finally ripened! It was kept in the fruit bowl on the dining room table. I shall cut it in half and enjoy spooning out the soft flesh for dessert tonight . Tricia

There's a great 'cheat' for ripening fruit, and it seems to work for most kinds. It involves bananas as the catalyst! The stems of bananas emit a gas as they ripen [ethylene]. You can use that to your advantage a few ways.

- Put under-ripe whole fruit, say strawberries or indeed a persimmon, in a sealed container, small enough to just contain them and allow air to circulate. The banana's ethylene will ripen not only the banana but the other fruit too. It's a good way to turbo-charge ripening.

- To just ripen bananas loosely wrap them in a plastic bag. Same effect as ^

- To materially slow their ripening, separate the bananas and then wrap the individual stems in small pieces of cling film. An alt is to trim the stems right down as they near peak-ripeness to almost halt it.

Google on search-terms > 'banana stem gas ripen fruit' to find much more on this, and how to use it to your benefit.